The purpose of this research is (1) to investigate the linguistic characteristics of specific language impairment (SLI) in Japanese, (2) to compare the obtained Japanese linguistic SLI data with linguistic SLI data in other languages, (3) to examine the neurological mechanism of grammatical impairment in SLI in accordance with the obtained linguistic SLI data.In order to achieve the above goal, we conducted the following. (A) We conducted a production task of complex verbs with children with SLI and age-matched children with normal language development. We also analyzed the obtained Japanese linguistic SLI data, and compared them to linguistic SLI data in other languages. (B) We designed al production task of grammatical Case, and conducted it with SLI and age-matched children with normal language development. We also analyzed the obtained Japanese linguistic SLI data, and compared them to linguistic SLI data in other languages. (C) We designed a syntactic comprehension task which cont
… Moreains canonical word ordered and scrambled sentences, and conducted it with SLI and age-matched children with normal language development. We also analyzed the obtained Japanese linguistic SLI data, and compared them to linguistic SLI data in other languages.From the results of the production tasks, we found that Japanese children with SLI exhibit severe difficulty in producing complex verbs with the causative suffix or passive suffix. They were relatively successful producing familiar complex verbs, but were unable to apply word formation rules to produce unfamiliar complex verbs. We also found that they exhibit difficulty in producing appropriate grammatical Case particles, namely the nominative Case particle,'-ga'the accusative Case particle, ]-O', and the dative Case particle,-ni. They were relatively successful producing appropriate grammatical Case particles in canonical word ordered sentences, but were unable to do so in scrambled sentences. From the results of comprehension tasks, we found varied results among the children with SLI. The child who exhibited a syntactic comprehension deficit, showed worse comprehension on scrambled sentences compared with canonical word ordered sentences.Finally, we discussed the neurological mechanism of grammatical impairment in SLI in accordance with the above linguistic SLI data in Japanese. Less